


Summer to Your Heart

by pavlablack



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Blow Jobs, Community: rs_games, Hurt/Comfort, Infidelity, M/M, Romance, Sexual Content, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 17:08:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pavlablack/pseuds/pavlablack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They met years ago when they were young and unattached. But now that Remus is married, Sirius is only summer to his heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summer to Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Anything you recognize belongs to JKR, not me. Written for the 2013 Remus/Sirius Games, for the prompt: "I know I am but summer to your heart, and not the full four seasons of the year.” ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay
> 
> Thanks to the mods for putting on an excellent fest, and for rewrites24 for being an awesome friend and beta.

“I missed you,” Remus whispers, hooking his fingers through Sirius’s belt loops and pulling him into the room, kissing him for the first time in a year.

He always says that, every time, right after they check in and hang out the “Do Not Disturb” sign, and Sirius always wants to say, “Well, why don’t you do something about it?” But he never does.

He wants to say a lot of things. Like, “Why don’t we unpack first?” Because unpacking would mean they have more than a couple of nights together in a four-star hotel once a year. Or, “Not until we go downstairs for some fish and chips, I’m starving,” because that would mean they could risk being seen together, that they actually _are_ together and not just pretending. Even, “Sorry, love, I’m just not in the mood right now” might be nice, because that would mean they could afford to wait, that they have all the time in the world.

But they don’t, and Sirius knows it, so he lets Remus walk him back to the bed and push him down. He lies still as Remus braces himself on the palms of his hands, trailing a tongue up Sirius’s neck and sighing into his ear.

“Forgot how good you smell,” he moans, thrusting his hips against Sirius’s. Already.

“Did you now?” Sirius runs a hand down Remus’s back and stares at a crack in the ceiling. Has that always been there?

They stay in the same room every year, partly for sentimental reasons, partly because it’s far enough from their actual rooms that they won’t run into anyone they know.

“Mmm,” Remus sighs, collapsing on top of Sirius and grinding his hips in a slow circle, and Sirius can’t help it—his body responds against his will. “Not really. I could never forget this.” Remus’s breath is hot on Sirius’s neck and Sirius realises they’ve neglected to turn on the air-conditioning, but he can’t bring himself to move right now, so he lets the sweat trickle down his throat and hopes it will cool him down. “Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about it, how you smell.”

“And then what?” Sirius asks. Because he really does want to know.

“And then I sneak out of bed and have a wank in the loo,” Remus laughs, but Sirius doesn’t feel like laughing. Not at all.

“What if you didn’t have to?”

“What?”

“Sneak off.” He draws Remus into a kiss and this time he lets himself get lost in it, hooking a leg around Remus’s waist and pulling him closer. “What if I were right there next to you?”

It’s a game they play, sometimes. The “what if” game. Sirius is usually the one who starts it, but once upon a time, Remus did.

“What if we just ran away together?” Remus had asked that first summer, eyes bright and intense as he and Sirius said goodbye at the airport. But as rash as Sirius could be at times, he couldn’t quite bring himself to say yes. Remus had a good job teaching art history at Glasgow, and Sirius’s family had just expanded their business to the States. It would be stupid to throw all that away over what might turn out to be a summer fling between two grown men whose professional conferences just happened to take place at the same time in the same London hotel.

“Let’s give it some time and see what happens,” Sirius had said, kissing Remus almost chastely on the lips.

It’s the biggest regret of his life.

“You’re next to me right now,” Remus finally answers, avoiding the question and Sirius’s eyes. He’s gotten quite good at that over the years.

“No, you’re on _top_ of me,” Sirius says, pushing Remus off. “And I’m fucking burning up in here, can’t you tell?”

He’s been looking forward to this night for weeks, months, a _year_ , and now, instead of enjoying it, he’s doing everything in his power to ruin it.

“Sorry,” Remus says quietly, getting up and cutting on the air.

Sirius can hear the hurt in Remus’s voice and he’s suddenly very tired. “Why do you always do that?”

“Do what?”

“Apologise.”

God, they sound like an old married couple. If only.

Remus opens his mouth to speak and then closes it.

“You were about to apologise again, weren’t you?”

“Old habits die hard.”

Remus looks perfectly miserable for a moment, but he catches Sirius’s eye and cracks a smile, and then they’re falling onto the bed and laughing together like teenagers.

It feels good, _so_ good that Sirius flops back against the pillows, relaxing for the first time since they checked in.

“C’mere,” he says, pulling Remus against him so they’re lying front to back. He feels an ache in his chest when Remus’s wedding band presses into his hand, but then Remus takes it off and lays it on the bedside table before leaning back against him, and things are almost all right again.

“I’m sorry,” Sirius says, planting a kiss atop Remus’s head.

“Don’t you start now,” Remus jokes.

“I can’t help it. You’re a bad influence on me.”

“More like the other way around,” Remus says, and Sirius flinches. After all, he is “the other man.” Well, the only man, technically, but the one sullying Remus’s perfectly respectable marriage to _her_.

Remus glances at the clock on the bedside table, and Sirius sighs.

“You need to call home?”

“I should,” Remus says, sitting up and reaching for the phone. “Sorry, it’s just, she—”

“Don’t,” Sirius says, shutting his eyes and pushing Remus away, more gently this time. “It’s all right. Do what you need to do. It’ll give me a chance to get cleaned up.”

Remus nods. “Thanks,” he says, giving Sirius a helpless look. “Don’t be too long. I really did miss you, you know.”

“I know,” Sirius says, forcing a smile before shutting the bathroom door between them.

*******

Sirius wanks in the shower and comes almost immediately. Not because he’s frustrated by his unfinished business with Remus, or because he’s desperate to take the edge off, even though both are true. It’s just that he’s used to getting himself off, used to conjuring whatever image of Remus he needs to because the real thing is never there. The Remus in his mind knows exactly how to touch him (slow at first because there’s no rush, and then faster so they can do it all over again), and he never looks at Sirius with those guilty eyes. He knows exactly what he wants and it’s Sirius, _only_ Sirius.

Sirius squeezes the last bit of come from his cock and shudders against the shower wall. The water’s tepid and the tub doesn’t drain properly, but he’s used to such inconveniences after thirteen summers of staying here. It’s almost comforting, in a way. This is the closest thing he and Remus have to a home, and he relishes in its familiarity, knowing he’ll soon be back in his luxury flat with a hot shower and no standing water, but also no Remus waiting for him in the next room.

He shivers as he towels himself off. He can hear Remus still talking into the phone and even though he hates himself for doing it, because it’s desperate and pathetic and just plain sad, he presses his ear against the door to listen.

“Well, what did the doctor say?”

Fabulous. The bloody bint is sick and Remus is probably going to have to fly back home and take care of her. He should have got off with Remus when he had the chance.

He conjures a couple more pleasant scenarios before going out to face reality. In one, Remus slams down the phone and mutters, “That woman is driving me mad. Why did I ever marry her?” In another, she’s just found out she has some rare disease and only six weeks to live.

Remus wouldn’t cheat on a dying wife, probably. But he might let himself be with Sirius after a proper mourning period.

He knows he’s a terrible person for thinking such a thing, but two days of boring business meetings are not what he came here for, and now it looks like that’s all he’s going to get.

He brushes his hair out and puts on clean clothes before stepping back into the room. Remus is still on the line.

“You too,” he says into the mouthpiece, catching Sirius’s eye before looking away. “Bye.” He sets the phone down in the cradle and lies back against the pillows.

I love you, too. That’s what he was saying. Sirius knows because Remus says the same thing to him when they’re hanging up from one of their secret calls.

He tries not to think about it. “Everything all right?”

“Yeah.” Remus closes his eyes and rubs his temples.

“Very convincing.” Sirius lies down beside him, taking Remus’s hand. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Remus says, brushing a thumb across Sirius’s wrist.

“I thought I heard you say something about a doctor. Is somebody sick?”

Remus sighs. He looks pale.

Sirius tenses. “Oh, God. Are _you_ sick?” What if Remus is the one with six weeks to live?

“No, Sirius. I’m fine.”

Sirius lets out a breath. “Is it Teddy?” They rarely talk about Teddy, not because he’s a sore spot between them, even though the kid is the reason Remus got married in the first place. But Sirius doesn’t resent Teddy, not really. Just his mother.

“No. He’s fine as well.” Remus hesitates before going on. “Dora thought she might be pregnant. She just found out she’s not.”

Sirius feels the blood drain from his face. “Oh. I didn’t know you were trying to have another baby.”

“We weren’t. But she was late, so we thought—”

“I get it.” Sirius wrenches his hand from Remus’s. It’s not as if he doesn’t know Remus has sex with his wife, but does he have to be reminded of it right now?

“Well, sorry then,” Sirius says, even though he’s not. He reaches over Remus to grab a menu and the phone. “You hungry? We could order room service.”

“Sirius—”

“I’ll pay for it. I know you don’t make much money.”

Remus flinches as if Sirius has hit him.

“Right,” he says, nodding at a spot on the wall. “Well, in that case, get me the most expensive thing on the menu.”

“Dom Perignon it is,” Sirius says, and orders a bottle along with their food. Even though there’s absolutely nothing to celebrate.

*******

In the middle of the night, Sirius feels a hand skim across the front of his pants.

“Mmm,” he moans. He’s torn between exhaustion and arousal, and he almost hopes he’s dreaming, because that way he gets the best of both worlds—a good night’s sleep _and_ sex, minus the complications that come from the waking world.

“Hey,” Remus whispers, tracing a finger along the line of Sirius’s cock. “You awake?”

Sirius sighs and lets his eyelids flutter open. “I am now.”

He turns his head to the side. The room is dark so it takes a minute for his eyes to adjust, but then he can see Remus propped up on his elbow, looking down on him with a hungry, worshipful expression.

He’d like to wake up like this every night, every day of his life. And that’s as much a dream as anything else.

“You still mad?” Remus asks.

Sirius shrugs and runs his fingers along Remus’s arm. “Not really. It’s just—”

“I know.” Remus leans down to press a kiss against Sirius’s shoulder, his hand still moving maddeningly slowly over Sirius’s prick.

“Feels good,” Sirius says, arching into Remus’s touch, his briefs growing tight and damp. “Reminds me of that first night.”

He shuts his eyes and rewinds. They’d met at the bar downstairs, gotten half-pissed, and decided to get a room. Neutral ground, they’d called it, in case one of them turned out to be crazy or obsessed.

Sirius is sick and tired of neutral ground.

“You mean the night I was too scared out of my mind to touch you so I waited until you fell asleep to make my move?” Remus asks.

“Yeah. That one.” They’d split the cost of the room and stumbled upstairs, where things turned suddenly awkward. So they drank from the minibar and watched the telly and Sirius felt his eyelids grow heavy, thinking he was crap at reading signals. Until he woke up to Remus touching him and sighing into his ear.

Like now.

“I missed you, baby. I missed this,” Remus whispers. He plants kisses across Sirius’s face, his neck, his chest, working his way down until his head is level with Sirius’s crotch. And then he pushes Sirius’s pants down and straddles him, sliding his tongue along the length of Sirius’s cock.

“Ah,” Sirius shudders, pressing his fingers into Remus’s shoulders. He draws his knees up and plants his feet on the bed.

“You like that?” Remus asks, his breath hot on Sirius’s skin.

“Yeah,” Sirius says, running his hands through Remus’s soft hair.

“Tell me what you want.”

Everything, Sirius wants to say. But instead, he pulls his briefs the rest of the way off and kicks them aside, sliding his cock fully into Remus’s mouth. Remus grabs onto his hips and Sirius reaches down to touch him, but he can’t quite get there, so Remus bats his hand away and grips his own prick, jerking off in time with Sirius’s thrusts.

There’s no talk, nothing but the sound of heavy breathing and sucking and moaning. Remus rubs himself off against Sirius, crying out and coming just before Sirius spills himself down Remus’s throat.

Remus swallows, letting Sirius’s cock slide out of his mouth and kissing the tip. He crawls up Sirius’s body, pecking him on the lips before grabbing a glass of water and taking a drink. He offers the half-empty glass to Sirius.

Sirius downs it in one gulp.

“You still hot?” Remus asks, setting the glass back on the table. “I can turn the air down if you want. Or get you some more water.”

“I’m fine,” Sirius says, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand.

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I just want to go to sleep.” He’s tired. So fucking tired.

“All right.” Remus sighs. “I ... I love you. You know that, right?”

“Yeah. You too,” Sirius says.

It’s about all he can manage right now.

*******

Sirius is standing outside the ballroom when someone whispers into his ear.

“The keynote speaker is crap. What do you say we skip it and go back to your room?”

Sirius knows it’s not Remus because they have a strict rule not to meet up during the day. But the man’s voice is familiar, especially its low, seductive lilt. He turns around and grins. “Gid.”

“Thought I recognised you.”

“I should hope so,” Sirius says, quirking a brow. Gid works for a rival company, but they’ve been at enough of the same functions over the years to develop an easy kinship. One that more often than not ends up with Sirius’s cock in Gid’s mouth.

“It’s been a while,” Gid says, taking Sirius in. “You look good.”

“You too,” Sirius says. It’s true. Gid might not twist his stomach in knots the way Remus does, but seeing him definitely has an effect on other parts of Sirius’s body. His cock twitches when he thinks about the last time they were together, Sirius on all fours while Gid did amazing things with his tongue.

“What’s it been, four, five months?” Gid asks.

“Something like that.”

“Well, I meant what I said. I could absolutely be talked into missing this luncheon. Might even be worth getting sacked over.”

“Sacked?”

“My boss is the speaker,” Gid admits.

Sirius laughs. “So is he really crap?”

“Eh, he’s not so bad. But I’ve heard his speech before. Helped him write it, matter of fact.” He lowers his voice again and leans in. “And there are things I’d much rather be doing right now.”

Sirius almost pulls out his extra room key and tells Gid to meet him in five minutes. Remus will be busy with his own meetings for the rest of the afternoon—that is, when he’s not calling to check on his poor, un-pregnant wife. So why shouldn’t Sirius take Gid up on his offer?

“Sorry, I’m here with someone,” he finally says.

Gid shrugs. “Some other time, then. That is, unless you’re seeing this bloke exclusively. I assume it’s a bloke?”

“Yeah. It’s a bloke.” Sirius hands his lunch ticket over as they reach the doors. “And no, it’s not exclusive.”

Which is precisely the problem.

*******

“Christ, it’s burning up in here,” Remus says when he steps into the room. He flings his briefcase onto the desk and adjusts the thermostat before he notices Sirius under the covers. “Sirius? Are you all right?”

“Dunno,” Sirius says, trying not to move. “It hurts.”

Remus drops down by the bed. “What hurts, baby?”

“My stomach, I guess.” He flinches as another pain shoots through him.

“Show me where,” Remus says, pushing down the covers and taking Sirius’s hand.

“Here,” Sirius says, pressing Remus’s fingers to a spot right above his belly button. “You think I have appendicitis?”

“I think that’s too high to be your appendix,” Remus says, lifting their hands and kissing Sirius’s fingers. “Could be food poisoning though. Have you been sick?”

“Yeah,” Sirius says. “When I first got back.” He’d barely made it to the toilet before he lost what little lunch he’d been able to eat, and then collapsed into bed without bothering to undress. He’d felt cold, so cold, and he hurt so badly he was convinced he was going to die right then and there, without ever seeing Remus again.

But Remus is here now, laying a hand against his forehead. “You do feel a little bit hot.”

“Is that a come on?”

Remus laughs. “C’mere, let’s get you out of this suit. Why on earth didn’t you take it off?”

“Didn’t feel like it,” Sirius says weakly.

Remus unlaces Sirius’s shoes and pulls them off before sliding his trousers down, loosening his tie, and unbuttoning his shirt. It’s certainly not the first time Remus has undressed him, but for some reason, it makes Sirius’s heart swell. Maybe because Remus is being so gentle, or because the way he’s touching him now has nothing to do with sex. Not that the sex isn’t brilliant—but this is nice in a different way.

“Poor thing, you’re all sweaty,” Remus says, pressing his hands against Sirius’s skin. “I hope you’ve got another suit to wear tomorrow, because this one’s done for.” But he hangs Sirius’s clothes in the closet just in case and searches through the minibar, pulling out a can and pouring the contents into a glass. He sits down on the bed beside Sirius. “Here. My mum used to give me ginger ale when I was sick to my stomach.” He lifts Sirius’s head and puts the glass to his lips.

“Thanks.” And fuck if Sirius doesn’t start crying.

“Shh, shh,” Remus says, setting the glass down and pulling Sirius close. “It’ll be all right.”

*******

“Hey,” Remus whispers, his arms still wrapped around Sirius from the night before. “You feeling better?”

“Yeah,” Sirius says, even though he’s not. Because he might not be sick anymore, but this is the last day before he and Remus have to say goodbye. Again.

They have coffee together and promise to meet back in the room by six. Sirius tries to make up for yesterday’s lost time, packing in as many sessions as he can and handing out quite a few cards to potential clients, but his heart isn’t in it, so he comes back early.

Remus is already there, packing his clothes.

“You leaving?” Sirius asks, and the stabbing pain is back, but this time it’s his heart and not his stomach that hurts.

“No,” Remus says, dropping an unfolded shirt into his suitcase. “Just wanted to get this over with so I don’t have to do it in the morning.”

Sirius looks at Remus’s suitcase. He’s not sure he’s ever hated anything more. Except for Remus’s wedding band. He takes Remus’s hands in his and flinches when he feels it.

Remus laces their fingers together and places them on Sirius’s hips. “I hate leaving you. You know that, right?” He gives Sirius a pained look, like he’s begging him to be okay with the way things are. And Sirius isn’t, not at all, but it’s all he’s got and he’ll be damned if he’s going to waste this last night.

“Please. Let’s not talk about it,” he says. And this time he’s the one who takes the lead, pushing Remus down onto the bed and grinding their hips together.

“You didn’t pack the lube, did you?” he asks, sliding Remus’s zipper down.

“It’s under here,” Remus says, patting the pillow. “But Sirius—”

“Shh.” Sirius sinks to the floor, kneeling by the bed and pulling off Remus’s shoes and socks and jeans. Remus lifts his hips as Sirius slides his boxers down, then leans forward and kisses him.

“Your go,” he says, after he tosses his last bit of clothing aside.

Sirius unbuttons his shirt and undoes his trousers, sliding his pants and shoes off with them. He reaches for the lube, but Remus beats him to it, pulling him back onto the bed.

“Wait,” he says, repositioning them so they’re lying side by side. He squeezes a generous amount of lube into his palm, and instead of coating Sirius’s cock with it, he slides his hand into the crevice of his arse.

“Remus,” Sirius says, his heart hammering as he reaches down to stall Remus’s hand.

“Please,” Remus says, not moving away but not pressing any further either. And Sirius knows he won’t, not until Sirius tells him it’s okay.

It’s not like they haven’t done this before. But it’s been a long time. Sirius used to wonder if they stopped because Remus fucking him would be too much like Remus fucking his wife.

“I’m not her,” he says, daring Remus to look at him and see somebody else.

“I know that, Sirius, God.” Remus leaves one hand on Sirius’s arse but uses the other to cup Sirius’s face. “I just want to be inside you, okay?”

Sirius lets out a breath. “Okay.”

“Tell me if it hurts,” Remus says, pulling Sirius’s leg over his side before kissing him slow and deep. His fingers trace tantalising circles over Sirius’s arse as Sirius slicks his cock and moves in time with Remus’s hand.

They do that for a long time, until Sirius feels as relaxed and wound up as he’s ever felt in his life. By the time Remus slides one, two, then three fingers inside, he can’t take it anymore.

“Please,” he says, thrusting up against Remus’s hand.

“All right.” Remus positions himself between Sirius’s legs. “You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“I love you,” Remus sighs as he pushes inside.

And it does hurt. But it feels good too.

*******

Sirius wakes up every few minutes, finally getting up to take a shower an hour before the alarm is set to go off. For once the water’s almost hot.

He takes one last look at Remus on his way out. It’s tempting to crawl back into bed with him, but he knows if he does he’ll end up either picking a fight or begging him to stay. And he doesn’t want to ruin the memory of their last night together.

Because it was their last night. It has to be. His heart just isn’t built for this.

He takes a taxi to the airport, half-listening as the driver, Ernie, prattles on about his wife.

“How long have you been married?” Sirius finally asks, leaning back against the seat and shielding his eyes from the sun.

“Forty years this month,” Ernie says. He pulls a picture from the visor and holds it up so Sirius can see. They’re standing together in front of a Christmas tree—Ernie, his wife, and their grown son. And all Sirius can think about is how that could be Remus’s family in another thirty years, and there’s no place in the picture for him.

“Good-looking boy,” Sirius says, swallowing a lump in his throat. “Looks like his mum.”

“Oh, that’s not his mum,” Ernie says, putting the picture back, “though they do look a bit alike, don’t they? But no, his mum and I split up when he was little.”

Sirius leans forward. “What?”

“Yeah, she was a good woman, but we just weren’t good together, if you know what I mean. Now Frances and me, that’s a different story.” He smiles at Sirius in the rearview mirror. “We had a rough go of it at first, but when you find the right person, you just know it, right?”

“Right,” Sirius says, even though he wants to ask Ernie what happens when one person knows it’s right but the other person doesn’t—what do you do then?

“Do you have somebody waitin’ at home?” Ernie asks him when they get to the airport, helping him unload his bag.

“No,” Sirius says. “It’s just me.”

“Ah, that’s too bad.”

Sirius shrugs and shakes Ernie’s hand, tipping him a few extra quid.

He makes his way through the airport, checking his bag and settling in for a long, lonely wait. Despite the early hour, there are a few people around, most of them reading or taking advantage of the quiet to get a few minutes extra sleep. But a young couple a few rows down press their heads together.

“I’m going to miss you so much,” the girl says, tears glistening on her cheeks.

“It’ll be all right,” the boy says, lifting her chin. “I promise. We’ll write all the time and be together again before you know it.”

Sirius wants to shake some sense into them and tell them either to give up now or put it all on the line because next year one of them is going to be with someone else. But he manages to keep his mouth shut by doing the crossword until his flight starts boarding.

He’s about to go through the gate when he hears a familiar voice.

“Sirius! Sirius!”

No. It can’t be.

He turns around slowly. And sees Remus standing there. _Remus_ , who twists Sirius’s stomach, his heart, his whole life into knots.

“What if we just ran away together?” Remus asks, pulling Sirius out of line. He’s out of breath and his hair is damp with sweat, but Sirius has never seen anything more gorgeous in his life.

“That’s so romantic,” the young girl sighs, turning to her boyfriend. “Why don’t you say something like that to me?”

“Come on, sweetie, be realistic,” he mumbles, glaring at Remus as if he’s just ruined what had been an otherwise romantic goodbye. “We’ll see each other in a few months.”

“Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?” Remus asks, reaching for Sirius’s hand.

Sirius steps back. “What are you doing here?”

“I told you. What if—”

“No. No more what ifs. I love you, Remus, I do, but I can’t do this anymore.”

“I can’t either,” Remus says, kissing him right there in the middle of the airport. He places his thumbs on Sirius’s cheeks, his eyes bright and intense as the first time they parted this way.

“What about your wife?” Sirius can’t bring himself to say her name. “And Teddy? Are you going to let him grow up without a dad?”

“Of course not,” Remus says, looking hurt but not letting go. “Look, it’s not going to be easy, I know that. And I’m not saying I can go with you right now. But I realised this week what I should have realised a long time ago. I have to be with you. And not just once a year.”

Sirius pictures himself and Remus and Teddy, standing in front of a Christmas tree. He dares to let himself hope. “You mean that? You and me? Together?” He takes Remus’s hand and feels for the cold metal that isn’t there.

“I do,” Remus says, his smile as bright as the sun.


End file.
